By Nicole Hong and Hilary Howard
Firefighters in New Jersey and New York were working on Sunday to contain the latest of several recent wildfires in the region, where the first forecast rainfall in weeks was expected to bring little relief to areas experiencing drought conditions.
Propelled by winds, the fire has blazed across 3,000 acres in Passaic County, New Jersey, and Orange County, New York — about an hour northwest of New York City. As of Sunday evening, it was only 10% contained, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.
“We’ve been running our folks ragged,” Bill Donnelly, chief of the Forest Fire Service, said at a news conference Sunday.
The unseasonably dry conditions in New Jersey and the rough terrain were making the wildfire difficult to extinguish, Donnelly said, adding that the fire was spreading both aboveground and through decaying root systems.
He said the expected rain would not be sufficient to put out the blaze, which was reported Saturday after it spread from a forested area in New York state into a remote area near West Milford. But he said firefighters hoped to contain it by the end of the coming week.
An 18-year-old employee of the New York state parks system died Saturday while fighting the fire. The employee, Dariel Vasquez, was helping to clear a wooded area when a tree fell and hit him, officials said.
Since early October, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service has responded to 537 wildfires in the state, about 500 more than in the same period last year, Donnelly said. Several of the fires have been burning since this summer, he said.
Hundreds of fires have burned across the region this fall during an unusually warm and dry season. A brush fire in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Friday night blanketed New York City in a smoky smell over the weekend that permeated the streets and seeped into apartment buildings.
By Sunday morning, the air quality in the New York metropolitan region had improved, as winds blew the smoke from New Jersey’s wildfires more toward upstate New York instead of the city, according to the National Weather Service.
But an air quality advisory was still in effect for the New York City area and the lower and upper Hudson Valley — meaning certain groups, including children and older adults, were advised to spend less time outdoors or avoid strenuous outdoor activities.
On Sunday evening, the region is expected to have its first measurable rainfall since late September, according to the weather service.
Still, only a quarter- to a half-inch of rain is expected by Monday morning, an amount unlikely to make a significant impact on drought conditions, meteorologists said. October was the driest month in New York City history.
“That type of rain is not really going to make a huge difference, but given that we haven’t had rain at all, any little bit will help,” said David Stark, a meteorologist at the weather service.
New York City is under its first drought watch in more than 20 years — a level that could escalate to a warning, and then to an emergency, if the city’s reservoirs do not fill up to normal levels. A drought emergency could lead the city to impose mandatory restrictions on water use.
The city has been experiencing an unusually high number of smaller brush fires, officials said, with 120 fires in a recent 10-day span.
Investigators were still examining the cause of the fire in Prospect Park, which burned about 2 acres and was extinguished by firefighters after three hours. The fire had been reported to the authorities by a bystander.
In central New Jersey, a man was charged with arson on Friday after he was accused of firing an illegal type of ammunition at a shooting range that set off a wildfire in Jackson Township. The fire, which broke out Wednesday and took about two days to contain, burned through 350 acres and forced the evacuation of 15 homes, authorities said.
The National Park Service has previously said that nearly 85% of wildfires in the United States are caused by humans, including by unattended campfires, discarded cigarettes and intentional arson.
A study published this year found that the frequency and intensity of extreme wildfires have more than doubled in the past two decades, driven by a hotter and drier climate.
“Extreme weather has become the new normal,” said Zach Iscol, New York City’s commissioner of emergency management. “When people think about climate change, they think about rising sea levels or catastrophic amounts of rain, but it manifests in a lot of ways.”
On Saturday, Mayor Eric Adams of New York announced a new ban on grilling in the city’s parks and urged residents to conserve water voluntarily, including by taking shorter showers, flushing the toilet only when necessary and fixing leaky faucets.
In Connecticut, officials responded to 12 new fires this weekend, and the fire danger level Sunday was “extreme,” according to a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Some state parks were closed as a result of the fires.
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